The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-05-15
HYN CRINKLE on MUSIC,
AND THE RESTRAINT IT II TO
PUT ON
HE Purltans Who Associate II With
the Devil and Hate Ii as
They do Beer.


dition OF affairs, for long time con-
fined to the liquor traffic, has now
extended to music. Under the law,
as interpreted by the Court of APP
peals, there can be no beer where
there is minstrelsy, and no minstrelsy
where there is beer; the same tribu-
nal has decided that minstrelsy
means music, whether. furnished by
an orchestrion, niger band" or a
sacred soloist, and includes Gounod's
Mass with "Grandfather's Clock. "
One does not have to think far to
discover that these silly laws and sa
pient opinions rest primarily upon
the Puritan sentiment which, outside
of the great metropolitan centers, is
still incorrigibly rampant in the
North. If there were not widely
diffused notion that music outside OF
Lowell Mason and a church choir is
impious on Sunday, such law would
be imperative by the very pressure
Of public opinion. But we are con-
stantly brought face to face in this
cosmopolitan city with the anomaly
Of a German beer drinking and a
French wine drinking population
in the main a peaceable and law
abiding class, bringing with them
the ingrained habits Of their fathers,
and who are denounced with Con-
necticut virulence on the one hand
for their tastes and their customs by
such Influential men as the Rev.
Howard Crosby, and cajoled and
hattered for their votes, on the 9TH
err, by equally prominent politicians.
Some of the most powerful social and
religious leaders of New York hon
estly believe that to drink anything
but lemonade and catnip tea is to
commit the objectionable sin, but by
far the largest portion of the popu-
lation has been brought up to believe
that to drink wine and beer is not
only permissible but beneficial and
necessary.
The same anomaly extends to
music. There is a deep puritanic
belief dormant in New England, and
eutcropping in New York, that secu-
lar music is an fundamentally of the
devil, and it only needs Cromwell
liam crisis and an iron sides" regi-
ment, differed by such brave men as
Howard Crosby and DR.. Talmage, to
see all our music halls burning, our
profane prima donnas pilloried, and
our music stores pillaged.
Does this sound like exaggeration?
Then remember that it is only a few
years ago that DR.. Crosby issued his
solemn ukase against art. His order
was that every statue of Psyche or
Cupid should be thrown into the |
river as the last accursed relic of a |
pagan iniquity. Recall that, few |
years ago, when those moral bedla
mites of Ohio-the so called tenn
perance women-started their cru
SADIE and began to destroy property |
and incite riot; that DR.. Talmage |
from his pulpit publicly invited them
to New York to clean out everybody |
who did not agree with them, and he |
warned the miserable beer drinking |
population that if hand was raised |
to stay these noble vixens, that the
bosom of a righteous indignation
would sweep them from the land.
Such is the result of bigotry and
enthusiasm combined, and these en-
ergetic zealots who preserve for us in
the nineteenth the narrowness of
the sixteenth century, stand behind
all our present chaos of sumptuary
law with their indomitable will and
their eXasperating Sectarianism.
1t is interesting to observe how
music, regarded as popular delight,
has spread in spite OF them. The
normal sense of the community,
which assented to the proposition
that it was better for men to drink
beer socially and quietly in their
public gardens and halls on Sunday
than to be viciously and disorderly
employed at something else, also as
sented to the gracious idea that it
was better to have a Strauss waltz
on Sunday than tuneless and mis-
chievous void. The great, generous
truth had dawned on men that music
in any shape or form cannot of itself
be vicious.
1t began to flow in stagnant cor
neIs and pulsate with cheer and re-
treshment in dense and arid neigh
borhoods; it broke forth in the pub
lie parks, it spread its wings over the
carousals of the Bowery, and pene-
trated with its blithe laughter into
the meeting places of toll and weari-
ness.
Instead of making debauchery
more violent, ii soothed the serpent
vice with its rhythm; instead of add.
ing virulence to the prohgacy of the
barroom and the cellar, it touched
the dirtiest depths with grace of its
own.
L have myself seen the most de-
graded and abandoned groups, when
the only redeeming feature was the
song or the symphony that hoated
over them and brought back on its
mystic currents the associations and
the sentiments that moistened their
indurated eyes and gave pause to
their blasphemQus tongues.
To those fever sick Wretches in the
great hospital OF life it must have
been like the sweet spring air that
comes in at the open windows, when
the jocund sun is shining and the
birds are offering up their madrigals
to the universal Lord.
To shut all these windows is the
work of Puritanism. So far as | can
understand the Howard Crosby feel
ing in the community, it desires to
abolish everything but Jerry Popkins
and his spring chicken festivals"
Rather than that, think anarchy
would reign.
But nobody can suppress, much
less abolish music. The whole ten
dency of the age is to increase and
disseminate it. 1t is the one form of
sentiment that is within reach of the
loWliest, the poorest, the saddest.
Two Chinese walls have been :
erected around it-one by society,
the other by bigotry. Down with
them. Let the best music battle the
I went mn To Worcester durino